Things will soon be changing at Bill James Online. The website you see in front of you was first developed a long, long time ago, when Andres Torres was still a marginal major leaguer. Unfortunately, the developers moved on and since then we haven’t been able to update the site as much as we’d like.

That’s why the site looks the same as it ever was. It’s why we haven’t improved the Reader Posts section. It’s why "Fun Stuff" is still listed in the navigation even though we haven’t added any fun stuff since we first opened our doors. Bill’s writing has been as fantastic as ever (with an extra shoutout to Dave Fleming), but the site itself has muddled along.

As a result, Bill James Online has never become what Bill James wanted it to be. Bill has always envisioned an active community rather than passive readers. He wants the polls to be robust and interesting. He wants you to be able to more easily exchange ideas, post your own stats and findings. Bill sees this site as the place where he will spend the rest of his career sharing his ideas while learning from you at the same time.

It hasn’t come together that way yet, but things are looking up. We have engaged a web development company to re-think Bill James Online, and we’re in the middle of that process right now.  Here are some of the changes we’re contemplating…

First of all the graphics are going to change.  The site will still remain a "low-key" graphical site, without lots of bells and whistles. Bill’s preference is to keep things simple, and the site will reflect that. But the graphic at the top of the page will be a little bolder, the fonts a little bigger.

Secondly, we’re going to beef up the public portion of the site.  Right now, there isn’t much to see unless you’ve subscribed to BJOL.  Potential new users can only see an old "tour" that was put together a couple of years ago.

On the new site, non-subscribers will get to read the most recent "Hey Bills."  They won’t be able to ask questions, but they’ll get to read the answers. Same thing with Reader Posts. We may even make some of Bill’s articles available to the public—occasionally and for a limited time.

This will help us better market the site and make it more enticing for potential new subscribers.

We’re also going to winnow down the number of menu items along the top of the page.  We’ll have Articles, Hey Bill, Reader Posts, Polls & Ratings, and Stats. That’s it.

These are the most-used portions of the site, and this structure will make it easier for you to find your way around. Over time, there will be a lot of options within those menu items, such as new authors or different types of polls.  But the basic navigation of the site will remain simple.

Reader Posts, Polls and Stats will all be different.  We know that the Reader Posts section is not very user-friendly.  We will have new bulletin board software in place, and it will be a lot more flexible than the current version.

We haven’t done as much with Polls and Ratings as we intended to, partly because we just haven’t been able to properly capture Bill’s ideas into a polling format.  We plan to improve that section of the site a lot, making it more interactive and interesting than just a one-shot "Who’s Better" type of poll.  It will probably take us a while to get there, but we will get there.

The Statistics section will change a lot.  We will continue to make some of the current profiles, such as the detailed fielding stats, available.  But there will be a different emphasis on a "community" of statistics. Bill will post spreadsheets of his work in the Statistics section, and all of you will be encouraged to post your own spreadsheets, data tables or what-have-you on the site. We want to build a community of knowledge.

There will be other, more mundane, changes to the site.  We will have an RSS feed.  Our email alert system will actually work. Stuff like that.  All in all, this will be a big improvement to Bill James Online.

I’m not entirely sure when the new site will roll out, but I’m pretty sure it will be before the Giants win their next World Series.  Seriously, I’m guessing it will happen early in the baseball season. Once we have a definite schedule, we’ll announce it.